Question

What I want to do is display three random images from a database.

I want to use 'SELECT * FROM banner_images ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 3', and at the end of the script, have three vars with the path (DB column) of the random images.

My Database Structure:

id    name           path 
1     Banner-101     Banner-101.png 
2     Banner-102     Banner-102.png 
3     Banner-103     Banner-103.png 
4     Banner-104     Banner-104.png 
5     Banner-105     Banner-105.png 

So for example after the script runs these are the vars

$path1 = 'Banner-103.png';
$path2 = 'Banner-105.png';
$path2 = 'Banner-101.png';

or something like that.

Does anyone know how I can do this?

Answer 1

Loop the rows and add to an array:

$array = array();
$i = 0;

//do your query
//fetch assoc rows
//loop them
while($row){
   $array[$i] = $row['path']; //change banner to field name
$i++;
}

If you need those vairable names just assign them after:

   $path1 = $array[0];
   $path2 = $array[1];
   $path2 = $array[2];

Now you can just echo those 3 variable names like you wanted.